The pleasure of pitching: Horseshoes take skill and practice, practice, practice

Throwing a horseshoe may seem like simple fun from a bygone era. After all, the sport has been around almost as long as farriers have been fitting horses with footwear. As far back as ancient Greece, soldiers who couldn’t afford a discus took discarded horseshoes, set up a stake and threw the shoes at it.

Today’s game still involves tossing or throwing a horseshoe at a pin, peg or stake, but the horseshoes usually weigh about 2 pounds and most participants have to throw 40 feet in juniors competition; women and seniors throw 30 feet.

Like in ancient times, the main object is to ring the pin or throw the horseshoe as close to the pin as possible. The modern game, however, has added a target requiring each player to stand at one stake and throw two shoes at the other stake. Scoring also has been incorporated: A horseshoe encircling the stake is a ringer and counts for three points. If no player throws a ringer, the shoe closest to the stake gets a point. Regulation games are played to 50 points, while informal games are played to 21.

According to Kenneth King, a mainstay at the Asheboro Fall Festival Horseshoe Tournament, it takes more than just flinging a shoe at a stake to be good – it takes skill and practice, practice, practice.

“When you throw a horseshoe, you have to absolutely throw it straight at the sod,” he says. “It has to go 40 feet of distance between where you let it go and hit the sod. It has to turn properly. The direction and distance and turning process – all three things have to come together to get a ringer.

“You have to have patience. Since the video games have come out, you can usually learn all the levels in an hour and you’re really good at it. With horseshoes, it takes, hours, days, weeks, months and, a lot of time, years to perfect it.”

King should know. His father, Walter, started the North Carolina Horseshoe Pitchers Association (pitchwithus.com/nc-hpa) in 1958 and was a state and national champion. The club’s members now number over 200.

Whatever you do, though, don’t mention the game cornhole around a pitcher. They’ll tell you that the two are nothing alike.

“I’ve tried it,” King says. “I don’t get much out of it. There’s not enough sport.”

To be successful in horseshoes, pitchers need to have brains and a little brawn, which aren’t necessarily needed in cornhole, he says.

“You don’t have to learn anything. People are getting too lazy to pitch a thing as heavy as a horseshoe – that’s the human condition. It’s a lot more rewarding to get a ringer than to get a beanbag in a hole.”

Randolph County residents don’t have to travel far to practice. Asheboro’s Memorial Park on Church Street is equipped with a horseshoe pitch along with other nearby parks such as Hagan-Stone Park in Greensboro and Lowe Warner Memorial Park in Troy.

If that’s too far to go, the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association has instructions on how to construct a pitch in your own backyard on its webpage horseshoepitching.com/gameinfo/backyard.html. If Mother Nature isn’t cooperating, indoor horseshoe sets are available online or at Walmart. A pair of good shoes will run you about $50 but will last a long time. All you have to do is file off the rough edges from time to time.

Once you have several ringers under your belt, there are plenty of opportunities to compete. The Asheboro Cultural & Recreational Services Department has historically put on a tournament during the Fall Festival. Last year’s was the 20th annual event.

“The Asheboro Rec Department has always been really good; they’ve helped out horseshoes a lot just by having that tournament,” King says. “We’ve had some pretty good crowds at the pitch.”

The North Carolina Mountain State Fair, which runs Sept. 6-15, also holds a competition.

The competition in the state is tough. In 2010, a team from Carrboro qualified for the World Horseshoe Tournament in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The team included the first African-American female to represent the state, Shernetta Edwards.